


Vanitas

by Kardinalka



Series: The Red and the Blue [2]
Category: Les Trois Mousquetaires | The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas, The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Cardinal Richelieu - Freeform, M/M, Musketeers, Other, PORTHOS - Freeform, Porthos Story, Trevilieu, vanitas - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 20:08:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12417231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kardinalka/pseuds/Kardinalka
Summary: Porthos remembers the great cardinal. In the end, he realizes he have to do the right thing...





	Vanitas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FreyaLor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreyaLor/gifts).



> Thanks to FreyaLor for her Betareading :-)

**Vanitas**

**Porthos´ story**

 

(two years ago)

_The huntsmen brought their preys before the King’s tent. Noblemen and dames of the Court casually passed them by, arguing and drinking wine. Deers were tied over the back of the horses, roe deers were carried by henchmen on poles, young servants walked with pheasants and partridges tied head-to-head as powder sacks upon Musketeers‘ belt. Dead eyes, turbid glances, red-glued feathers, blood-matter fur, the bared fangs of two young wolves, the smell of gunpowder, death, andthe merry voices of the indifferent courtiers._

_Only one capture sparked a real interest. The big brown bear, which pursued by hunters for hours, and finally dragged before the king's table. Louis clapped his hands. He didn´t participate in the hunt, he knows that this beast is beyond his power, but he can still appreciate the work of his hunters. The whole company went into the chateau for the feast, dead animals left alone._

_Only one man cared to pay them a tribute. Cardinal Richelieu swept a sad stare over teh wolf’s fur, the feathers flustered by the wind, the glassy eyes reflecting the cloudy sky, and finally, the body of the bear._

_The huge head showed ragged canine teeth, red tongue glistening through yellow fangs, black eyes, still so alive, thick fur chopped up by claws and spikes. As the Court feasted, fog quietly crept from the forest to the glade and swallowed the dead animals, oblivious to the joyful voices coming from the tent._

_The company slowly moved out of the tent into the hunting lodge. The servants had a lot of work with live guests, and the dead had to wait._

_The cardinal tightened his coat around him as he approached the bear. He felt the sadness of the forest floating all around. In the moist cold air, he smelled the clotting blood of dozens of wounds. He sighed, deeply, watching his breath condensing in the fog. He blinked, sensing something into the vanishing mist. A silhouette at the edge of the forest. Perhaps some belated hunter. His eyes narrowed._

_It was a wolf._

_Dark, quietly standing among the trees, perhaps drawn in here by the smell of blood, the scent of dead flesh, so hungry that he dared get closer to the humans. They looked at each other in silence. The cardinal did not move, watching the beast, as it quietly approached him, head to the ground and ears astutely raised. It stopped around the bottom of that morbid line of dead animals, near the bodies of two wolves._

_Richelieu watched the dark muzzle exploring their fur. The wolf went on, closing on the standing man, unthreatened, fearless.The animal stopped less than ten feet away, and for a moment none of them moved, the yellow wolf eyes staring into the brown gaze, until finally the beast bowed her head, grabbed two large pheasants in its mouth and disappeared back in the woods._

_The man squinted at the swirling mist, as it closed behind the forest creature, and smiled._

_He remained there, next to the great bear._

_The minister stood alone, the voices behind him were being lost to him, his eyes gazing into the darkness of the forest._

_The shining eyes of a hungry wolf appeared again. The forest was coming back for his lost children, to make a bit of sense in unnecessary death. The moon lit up the clearing and the gray backs of hungry predators, retreating in a semicircle as experienced mercenaries. Wolves didn’t kill if they didn't have to, if they had enough. The man knew it and he wasn't afraid. He stood next to the the greatest of all beasts. Everything seemed suddenly so distant, human rules, obligations, King, law, God... all defeated by the natural order of the real world._

_The man leaned over the massive body and pulled off his gloves. He buried his fingers into the wet fur. The tips of his fingers touched the cold skin of the bear, hidden deep in the dense undercoat. He felt the strength of the body, stronger than any man._

_Man, that insidious creature, attacking in numbers and killing for fun. Man defeated the lord of the forest, and dragged his dishonore corpse to his threshold outside the woods. Stroking the bear's fur, he watched the wolves covering the quarry over the dead beast’s back._

_He smiled again._

_He didn't know why, a whim, surely._

_He knelt down next to the unmoving animal, the mighty fallen warrior, and closed his eyes._

_No one should have to die alone after all._

_Richelieu leant gently against the bushy fur, keeping vigil over the great brown bear._

_*_

_Porthos never told anyone about it._

_He never told his friends how the King asked him during the feast to look for His Eminence and see he he was allright. How he went through halls, hunting lodges, into that empty tent standing between the castle and the woods, finding none until he stepped into that glade where the huntsmen aligned their plunder._

_He never told his about that blood-freezing sight of that moonlit clearing, three wolves raising their heads, eyes glowing like crystal chandeliers. About the fear that made him grip the hilt of his sword, that nailed his legs to the ground. About the raw dread as he got a glimpse of a red figure in the middle of the wolf pack, calmly resting next to the brown bear._

_Porthos stepped forward and the wolves darted into the forest. He froze, trying to calm his wildly beating heart._

_Cold sweat glistening on his forehead, he slowly walked to the First Minister.The Cardinal opened his eyes and stared at the musketeer in front of him, a dark familiar silhouette lit by the castle’s torches, focusing to the place where he expected a face._

_Porthos just took off his hat and dropped one knee on the ground._

_Etiquette didn’t require him to, but he still did. He looked directly into the Cardinal's face, no further than an arm’s lenght._

_"Eminence..."_

_His voice betrayed him, as he couldn't keep his eyes off the pale face, dark eyes, white hands on the heavy coat, grey hair captured in the bushy bear fur._

_The Cardinal just smiled and reached out a hand towards the king's musketeer. Porthos raised his bear's paw in a stiff leather glove and clumsily grasped the delicate fingers and helped him stand up. The duke noded his thanks at him and walked on. Almost one head taller, the Musketeer followed._

_He never told anyone. That evening he returned to the barracks and blankly stared at the wolf pelt nailed to the wall. From that time on, he never offended the King's Minister once._

*

 

 

(present)

He didn't tell anybody.

After returning from the forest of Saint-Lambert, they made to their quarters without a word. Porthos sat down on the bed and stared at the wolf skin.

He knew that it wasn‘t right, that the whole thing wasn't supposed to happen, not this way.

This man couldn’t stay in the woods, not him, no matter what horrible deeds he might have done.They couldn’t leave this man on the ground like a carrion, without funeral, without prayers,his bones rotting in forest soil from tonight to Judgement Day.

 

No, this wasn't right, they were allowed to punish the body, but not the soul...

 

*

 

 

 

(one year ago)

_"Monsieur Porthos, they call you?"_

_He turned to the Minister's voice, as he was addressed. Perhaps for the first time ever. People were saying many things, incredible things about Richelieu. That he was cruel and ruthless, that he had fits of anger and hysteria, so furious  the servants had to lock him in his chambers and tie him to the bed. He didn't even know who those stupidities came from._

_No, this man didn‘t look like he could rip sheets with his teeth and threaten innocent women to torture. This man had a delicate melodious voice, was stoically calm, perfectly controlled._

_Two things in him were most interesting. His dark, vivid, large brown eyes, shining with the superior wits of higher men. His red-gloved hands, slender fingers accidentally bound to a cardinal's ring. They said he was no Cardinal, that perhaps didn‘t even believe in God, he just cleverly abused Church in his pursue of power. Helpless and stupid people did indeed speak a lot about him._

_"Yes, Your Eminence," he bowed._

_They met that night at the menagerie, next to the bear ditch’s walls._

_Below them wasa brown female bear, her head shooting up as she picked up both men within earshot._

_‚You're rude, Porthos‘, they said. Yes, he was._

_He stood there, and as there was no other soldier in sight, he didn’t feel ashamed for talking with this man, this enemy of musketeers.  
He stood there, with no idea what to do, and yet, with the need to say something. _

_"As a kid, I had a bear cub.“ He spoke then. „My father once brought him from the forest, when they hunted his mother.“_

_The minister did not move, just kept looking down at the beast in the paddock._

_"I called him Jonas and I believed that when he’d grow up, I'‘d ride him like a horse, that we'd be friends." He smiled to himself over that memory, which brought him back into childhood._

_The minister smiled. Red cloak slightly fluttered around his shoulders._

_"I rode a bear all my life, Mr. Porthos“ Richelieu uttered quietly. „ All my life I've been waiting for the moment he’d throw me to the ground and rip me apart.“_

_Aramis would understand the metaphor._

_Porthos only knew it should not be taken literally, but he didnt call it by the word "metaphor". It’s a meaning game, a riddle._

_However, he didn't know what to say._

_"Well, is it worth it?" he said finally. Dark eyes turned to him with concern._

_"I would die for it." He smiled and walked past him._

*

 

 

 

(present)

After the straining ride he fell asleep sitting on the bed, leaning back against the stone wall. He rubbed his neck and stood up. Outside it was still dark, but the sunwas already beginning to chase away the darkness of night.

He got dressed.

Didn't wake any of his friends. He didn't say anything and went to the stables, mounted a fresh horse and rode to Saint-Lambert.

He arrived into the woods at dawn. The rain had stopped.

He dismounted and led the horse through the awakening forest. He was afraid what he would witness on the hill. Always so cheerful, Porthos now just quietly walked through the woods with his head down.

 

(10 months ago)

_"And what happened with Jonas, monsieur Porthos?"_

_He spinned around to a calm voice. They stood in the foyer of the royal ball, Porthos as a guard, the cardinal as a guest, seeking refuge from the noise of the hall into the quiet orangery._

_The Musqueteer quickly recalled a conversation that began a few months ago, and that he deemed forgotten for sure._

_"Well, when he was six months, he tore apart a few chickens in the yard. Father wanted to shoot him, but I took him into the hills instead, far away from humans. Hopefully he survived, I haven't seen him.“_

_Porthos spoke, watching the long train of red silk flowing away behind the minister._

_"You're full of surprises, mr. Porthos." Sounded the quiet voice._

_"Du Vallon, Your Eminence. Porthos is just a nickname.“_

_"I know."_

*

 

(present)

Bear's ears. Jonas liked the prunes, he remembered

When he arrived at the place of execution, his heart stopped.

 

What he found there was only a few bloodied leaves.

 

 


End file.
